No woman, no cry

Magenta is a vision in white, a relic of centuries past. In anticipation of the ravages of the tropical sun, she wears an ankle-length, long-sleeved lace creation, empire-waisted and high collared, with an over-sized sunhat. Huge round Hepburn shades shield her pale eyes, and even her hands are covered in gloves. And they're still on the airplane.

The blonde certainly doesn't let whatever curiosity her outfit attracts (and, even so covered, it must be admitted that the sheer size and shape of her draws eyes as well) to detract from her excitement. She has sipped mercilessly at mai-tais, having proclaimed this the ultimate vacation drink, and nattered endlessly from the window seat (which she seized without asking Audrey), telling her bride (until the brunette dozes off in self-defense) or Susie about every whale (cloud shadow), giant shark (fishing boat) or kraken (kraken") she imagines that she sees in the ever more exotic waters that pass beneath them.

Her excitement reaches a fever pitch, however, when the plane bumps down and rolls along a runway surrounded by pale sand and palm trees. By this point Magenta is bouncing up and down in her seat (something her dress was poorly designed for) and pointing out the window. "Palm trees, ladylove! See! We're in a foreign country. Everything will be different! I wonder if the toilets will flush backwards" Oh, we're going to have such fun."

When they exit the plane, taking the roll-up stairs down to the runway, no direct-to-concourse air-conditioned accordion here, the heat hits them like a slap, but Magenta only hugs Snooze close to her bosom, the better to shield the babe with the rim of her unlikely hat, and narrates her way into the terminal.

"We're gonna have to go through customs, but no worries lovergirl, nobody checks anything when you're coming here, it's only when you leave that they get nosy. Besides, I've been reading up, and I and I, we speak de language now, mon!"

The line to the customs station is mercifully short once the women have recovered their luggage (entirely too much for their projected stay), and Magenta leads the way, pulling the overloaded dolly behind her, and working the white dress for all she's worth, wringing every swish and bounce out of it that decency allows.

Folded into the passenger seat with some difficulty, Magenta undertakes an even more perilous unfolding...of the map obtained at the airport. Soon the insidious thing has overtaken much of the front seat, and obscured a perilous proportion of the windshield. Behind it (or more appropriately within it, as the map has all but consumed her) the blonde mutters and traces a finger across lines that may be roads or rivers or elevation contours.

Finally satisfied, she attempts to refold the document with increasing frustration, and ultimately simply wads it into a volleyball-sized clump and drops it to the floor.

"Ok, lovergirl, I got this. Just go straight until you see the first paved left, none of those goat trails or like that. Take that turn and after about three miles we should begin to see signs. If we drive into the ocean we've gone about a mile too far!"

Audrey dutifully puts the hatchback in gear, with a lot of disconcerting rattlings and buzzings, and before long they have left the safe arms of the airport and are driving through the countryside, where tin-roofed shacks and goats and chickens underscore the otherness of the place. They pass bicycle-mounted fruit sellers, burdened with impossible nets of mango and papaya, and are more than one driven to the side of the road by great, reckless lorries. The left turn miraculously appears on schedule, however, and shortly thereafter a sign has Magenta bouncing in her seat and pointing.

"Beaches," it reads, "Jamaica's premiere topless resort. Two Miles ahead."

Magenta, indulging in one of her occasional fits of competence, rescues Artsy-bear from behind the little brunette and restores her to her rightful owner, who gleefully proclaims something that sounds suspiciously like "raptor."

The parking lot is crushed white gravel, which chuckles happily beneath the tires as they swing in and park. And then the blonde is uncoiled and out in a relieved burst of energy, throwing open the trunk with an aside to Audrey, "Call it the "boot" here, lovergirl, they almost speak English!" The little car does an impressive job of disgorging entirely too much luggage, but to be fair to the brides the baby's supplies are bulky and amount to a significant portion of the load.

As the boot is slammed shut, a steel drum band ramps up next to the quaint bamboo and wattle registration hut (which hides a bank of very modern computers, and an enviably fast connection). Uniformed bellhops trot out to relieve the women of their gear, and to escort them to the receptionist, who is already ruffling through files in an attempt to anticipate who these evening arrivals are.

"You mus' be de Horne party, no?" She smiles as they reach her window. Susie trills something excited but unintelligible, and Magenta nods to acknowledge that it is indeed who they are. The registration, lubricated by the magic of plastic money, is handled rapidly, and before long the trio are safely ensconced in their own little reed hut, complete with a crib and a queen-sized bed, a kitchenette and full bath in an adjacent structure, and the rhythmic lullaby of the ocean only yards away. There is a complimentary bottle of rum punch on a table in the center of the room, and the air is fragrant with tropical flowers.

The blonde looks around, slack jawed with wonder.

"Who's ready for a swim?" she asks, already rummaging through her personal suitcase.

The baby was fast (though she probably could not crawl at 30 mph as Magenta frequently claimed), but the blonde was quicker and practiced at this aspect of parenting. Thus just as Susie launched herself off the side of the bed, Magenta intercepted her and swept her up into a hug.

"Suze can just wear a one piece, Ladylove, I don't think anyone will object to that. But you and I ought to do the when-in-Rome thingee, don't you think?"

Unpacking, for Magenta, meant digging willy-nilly through her suitcase, creating a veritable blizzard of costumes and underthings, until she found what she needed. In this case it was a neatly cut black swimsuit bottom, a bit on the modest side but very close fitting, and more nearly equivalent to an abbreviated pair of bicycle shorts than a true bikini bottom.

Juggling the babe as she did, the blonde managed to strip one-handed and wriggle into these, leaving the rest of her 6-foot-plus frame gloriously unclothed, with many a longing look out a nearby window at the night-lit waves slapping softly against a barely populated white beach.

Finally, plopping the swim-suited child back on the bed (and keeping a wary eye should Susie decide to dive for the edge of the mattress again), she stands and lifts her hair off her shoulders, turning smoldering grey eyes to Audrey.

"There, lovergirl, all ready. Before we go out, though, would you help me put on some moonscreen" I'd hate to burn on our first trip to the beach...."

If ever a moon could burn you, this one could. It cast its pale light on the breast of the equally white sand in an extravagant spill, making it easy to see the others who had gathered to enjoy the beach in the hush of evening, only disturbed by the soft breath of waves stroking the shoreline.

Magenta carried a quiet Susie, whose overlarge eyes seemed to take in the surroundings with something like wonder, in one arm and held Audrey's hand with her other. The little brunette must have been initially surprised by the numbers of vacationers who had left the luxury of their little bungalows to savor the night beach. There were some dozens of them. In some couples the women were beautiful, languid and pale, their grace rivaling even the strange perfection of Artsblood's motions. Others, however, were ugly to the point of grotesqueness, and yet seemed oblivious to this, baring their twisted forms to the moon with a confidence to match the more beautiful.

Magenta caught on first, and stiffened a little. But, though some of the moon-bathers did eye the little brunette hungrily, a glance at Magenta, and even more so at the child she held, quickly turned their eyes away with something akin to embarrassment.

"I should have guessed, ladylove," the blonde whispered, her soft sax voice rich with apology. "The brochures praised the night bathing. If I were as clever as I sometimes imagine myself to be, that would have been a clue."

But she proceeded with confidence, spreading a blanket on the breast of the white beach at a discrete distance from the other bathers and establishing Susie on a corner of it with her little bucket and shovel. She cast a final cautioning glance at those nearest to them and smiled at her bride, attempting to put the best light on the situation.

"Look on the bright side, doll-girl. If you decide to bathe during the day you'll have the beach all to yourself!"

Audrey had kept her eyes on the ocean. All of those crashing waves had a hypnotic effect on her, like a snake watching the movement's of a charmer's pungi. But she listened to the creature with the disarming name and each word sent a shiver rolling from the tips of her toes to the base of her neck.

She found no comfort in anything that Alice Ellen said. Her well honed flight or fight response opened an imaginary eye and stretched in preparation. Then she crossed her arms over her chest protectively when the beast sauntered off, her thoughts tumbling over one another like puppies restlessly tumbling in their welp box. Eventually her gaze would find Magenta again and Susie's declaration brought a hesitant smile to the pretty bow curve of her lips.

"Nice. Yeah."

Mathematically, it couldn't have been possible, and perhaps it was because of the company that she kept, but it seemed to her that vampires were everywhere. They were nocturnal beach goers and maids who waved their nightly work schedule off as a side effect of feigned alcoholism. They were seamstresses and night school teachers. They shared her bed and babysat her daughter. Even Alice Ellen and Edward, both products of a rather unfortunate bloodline, were bold enough to pretend that they were something they weren't.

Audrey buried her toes in her sand and set her top teeth against her bottom lip.

"Are you going to visit them?" Because I'm not. Eddie Boy can think with his teeth all that he wants, but I'm not going to be on the menu.

Magenta's answer would be heard just as easily if Audrey was swimming as it would be on dry land, and it was something she comforted herself with on her way to the water.

She heard the words over the crash of the waves and watched as silver slivers of water danced over her toes. Almost three years since she had first laid eyes on Magenta and she was still learning so much. She dug her heels into wet sand.

"Alright," she said into a passing, salty breeze. "We can go."

The water was warm and for that she was thankful. A few feet into the crush, she disappeared beneath a wave as tall as she was, only to reappear further out with her hair slicked back and black for the wetness, her small breasts bobbing in the water. When her feet no longer touched the bottom and fatigue added a heaviness to her limbs, Audrey turned and dove into another wave, legs and arm stretched out as rode the tide back to shore.

Thirty minutes had seemed like seconds out there and she arched her brows in surprise as her wife passed that information to her. Dropping to an indian style sit between Magenta and a boisterous Snooze, Audrey grabbed a sand speckled towel and pulled it around her shoulders like a shawl.

"If I get eaten then it's all on you, Blondish," she said with a sniffle and a dopey little smile.

Audrey's smile hurt. She didn't stare at anyone long enough to bring about discomfort but she was sure that the words she spoke between clenched teeth had pricked more than a few pairs of ears. "This isn't awkward at all."

Even as they sat down, Audrey opted to perch herself upon the arm of Magenta's chair instead of the empty seat next to her. Susie watched them all and blurbled around the fist she was chewing on, her eyes impossibly wide. A young man broke away from the group. Unlike his ugly hostess, he was a stunningly pretty creature; slenderly constructed, his eyes a deep blue and his short hair as black as a raven's wing.

As the crowd tried their best to keep their eavesdropping under-wraps, the boy smiled at the trio and offered a finger to Susie. She took the digit in a drool soaked hand and as if he had been aware of the sudden hyper-awareness of the two women, he flashed them both a smile. "She looks just like my little sister." His eyes lighted upon Magenta's face. "What's her name?"

It was Audrey who answered. "Susie. Susanna, actually."

The boy straightened and wiped the baby drool on the side of a so-washed-it-was gray Smashing Pumpkin's tshirt. Then he bowed to them. "I'm Frankie. Don't let the folks here make you feel out of place. That's actually the only thing they're good at."

He continued his study of the two women without a lick of lust in his eyes.

"Do you two have names or do people just whistle when they want your attention?"

The little brunette chuckled once. "I'm Audrey and this is my wife, Magenta."

Frankie looked up to the big blonde once again. "Nice to meet the three of you. I'd better jump back into the fray. If you get too bored," and then his toned changed to one of genuinely friendly warning,"..then you might want to leave. The island has a lot of things to get into."

He turned and ducked back into the crowd. One of Audrey's dark brows ticked up and while Susie babbled, her smaller mother turned her attention to her taller one.

"Blondish, that can't be good."